Classical sources usually considered the Paeonians distinct from the rest of the Paleo-Balkan people, comprising their own ethnicity and language. It is considered a Paleo-Balkan language but this is only a geographical grouping, not a genealogical one. Modern linguists are uncertain as to the classification of Paeonian, due to the extreme scarcity of surviving materials in the language, with numerous hypotheses having been published:
Wilhelm Tomaschek and Paul Kretschmer have put forward an “Illyrian” hypothesis (i.e a part of the linguistic complex of the ancient north-western Balkans) which, according to Radoslav Katičić, seems to be the prevailing opinion.[2]
paprax, a species of fish once found in Lake Prasias. Paprakas, masc. acc. pl.
A number of anthroponyms (some known only from Paeonian coinage) are attested: Agis (Άγις),
Patraos (Πατράος), Lycpeios (Λύκπειος), Audoleon (Αυδολέων), Eupolemos (Εὐπόλεμος), Ariston (Αρίστων), etc. In addition several toponyms (Bylazora (Βυλαζώρα), Astibos (Άστιβος) and a few theonyms Dryalus (Δρύαλος), Dyalos (Δύαλος), the Paeonian Dionysus, as well as the following:
Pontos, effluent of the Strumica River, perhaps from *ponktos, "boggy" (cf. German feucht, "wet", Middle Irishéicne "salmon", Sanskritpánka "mud, mire", Greekpontos "passage", "way");
Stoboi (today Gradsko), name of a city, from *stob(h) (cf. Old Prussianstabis "rock", Old Church Slavonicstoboru, "pillar", Old English stapol, "post", Ancient Greek stobos, "scolding, bad language");
Dysoron (Δύσορον and Δύσωρον,[9] nowadays Dysoro, Δύσορο), name of a mountain, from "dys-", "bad" (cf. Greekdyskolos "difficult", and "oros" Greekoros, "mountain");
Agrianes, name of a tribe, possibly from *agro- "field" (cf. Lat. ager, Grc. ἀγρόςagros, Eng. acre) with cognates in the Greek tribe of Agraioi who lived in Aetolia, and the name of the month Agrianos which is found throughout the Dorian and Aeolian worlds.[5][10]
References
^Harry van der Hulst, Rob Goedemans and Ellen van Zanten as ed., A Survey of Word Accentual Patterns in the Languages of the World, Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, Walter de Gruyter, 2010, ISBN311019631X, p. 433.
^ abcdRadoslav Katicic, (2012) Ancient Languages of the Balkans: n.a. Volume 4 of Trends in Linguistics. Walter de Gruyter, p. 119, ISBN3111568873.
^Susan Wise Bauer (2007). The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome.ISBN0-393-05974-X, page 518: "... Italy); to the north, Thracian tribes known collectively as the Paeonians."
^Francesco Villari. Gli Indoeuropei e le origini dell'Europa. Il Mulino, 1997. ISBN88-15-05708-0.
^cite journal|Hrach Martirosyan “Origins and historical development of the Armenian language” in Journal of Language Relationship, International Scientific Periodical, n.º10 (2013). Russian State University for the Humanities, Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.